I'm not sure how much information contains anything new but the commitment to spend a certain amount on transport improvements during this parliament sounds promising. I wonder if that figure excludes TPE electrification?
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Originally Posted by Lord Ahmad
It is two centuries since the north helped pioneer new manufacturing processes, which triggered the Industrial Revolution. But that did not just change the way we made goods: it changed the way we transported them, too. Canals and railways gave the north a competitive advantage. Within a week of the first canal opening, the price of coal in Manchester had fallen by half. Transport opened up new labour markets and gave companies access to new customers, just as it does today. Roads and railways are the arteries through which the life-blood of our economy flows. Yet for decades, transport investment in the north has lagged behind London and the south-east. Successive Governments have failed to provide the vision—or, indeed, the funding—needed to bring the north’s infrastructure up to standard.
I recognise that many in this House who will take part in the debate have made great contributions to tackling this very challenge. I acknowledge the efforts made by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, who initiated the Northern Way in 2004, and the strong case that he has made for transport connectivity across the north. I also acknowledge my noble friend Lord Heseltine, who has been a passionate advocate for devolution and direct action to regenerate the north—and there are many others.
The northern powerhouse, which has been made a priority for this Government, recognises that the north remains poorly served by transport. As a result, lack of capacity and poor connectivity across the north act as a drag on growth. That is something that we have to change and are changing. Just as transport created the first northern powerhouse, so it will create the second one, too. We are already committed to £13 billion of transport investment across the north in this Parliament alone. That will include improving roads, rail and local transport.
Most importantly, it will also link the cities of the north. As my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer pointed out, if you look at all the great cities and towns within a 40-mile radius of Manchester, you have a region with incredible potential and a huge pool of talent. United as a single unit, this region can be a much more powerful economic force—one that, in turn, will benefit not just that region but the whole country. A network of cities connected by a modern transport system, which acts as a catalyst for growth, aspiration and opportunity, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts: that is what the northern powerhouse is all about.
I will very briefly explain the progress that has been made on northern transport over the past year. Last summer, the Chancellor set out his vision for the northern powerhouse. In response, Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle and Sheffield came together to produce the One North report in August: a single transport plan for an interconnected north.
In October, HS2 chairman Sir David Higgins published his report RebalancingBritain, and in the same month we created and established Transport for the North, a new alliance of northern authorities and city regions speaking as a single voice and working with government and national transport agencies such as Network Rail, Highways England and HS2. Transport for the North is proof that we are serious about devolution and investing in our transport infrastructure. This is a transport programme for the north, delivered by the north.
In March this year, TfN and the Department for Transport jointly published the first Northern Transport Strategy report covering roads, rail, freight, airports and smart ticketing. A second report will be published next year. By the autumn, an independent chairman will have been appointed, based on a mechanism agreed with all TfN partners. So transport will be at the heart of the new northern powerhouse.
Rail is a particular priority. As I am sure we all recognise, rail is the most efficient and effective way to move large numbers of people quickly and reliably between cities, and is absolutely key to the future of the north. However, the network has been neglected for decades and overcrowding is a daily reality for commuters on routes into major cities such as Manchester, Leeds and Liverpool. Some trains are operating at more than 50% overcapacity, so the improvements we are making as part of the largest and most ambitious rail investment programme since the Victorian era are long overdue. For example, we are delivering the northern hub, a major electrification programme and new rolling stock on TransPennine routes and the east coast main line. Our plans will add capacity for another 44 million passengers a year on the existing northern railway, with an extra 700 trains running each day. TfN will work to maximise the benefits of these investments.
In just two years, we will start building HS2. HS2 will change the transport architecture of the north—but, most importantly, it will also change the economic architecture. Seven out of 10 jobs created will be outside London, with the north and Midlands gaining at least double the benefits of the south. We are looking at the case for faster construction of the northern sections to deliver those benefits as soon as possible, including a dedicated Bill for the line to Crewe, subject to further analysis and final decisions on the preferred route. Sir David Higgins has suggested that such a link might be brought forward by six years. We are also looking at the potential for speeding up the line between Leeds and Sheffield. We will make an announcement about phase 2 in the autumn. As the first new north-south railway for more than a century, HS2 will dramatically improve connections across the north and, importantly, will slash journey times. For example, the trip from Leeds to Birmingham will be cut from one hour and 58 minutes to just 57 minutes.
However, our plans for northern rail do not stop there. To transform services right across the region we also need to build a new east-west line. Currently, journeys on these routes are too slow, too infrequent and too overcrowded. This simply puts people off travelling and puts businesses off investing in the north, so our strategy includes a new high-speed rail link linking Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield and Hull. This line will reduce journey times, increase capacity, have more frequent services and improve connectivity. Together, these plans represent a massive step forward for transport in the north—and, of course, they will free up substantial capacity on the existing rail and road network.
Improvements to the road infrastructure are crucial for the north. That is why the Government have already committed £3 billion for northern road improvements in our Road Investment Strategy. As with rail, east-west road connections are increasingly congested, making journeys unreliable, particularly in bad weather. The work of Transport for the North and Highways England will focus on how best to address this problem, with targeted investment to relieve pinch points and to get the network moving freely. We are already upgrading sections of the motorway network, including the M62 between Manchester and Leeds, to four-lane “smart motorways” to make best use of their capacity. We are also improving the A1, the M1 and the A64 and delivering a large number of local schemes.
This is a start, but it is not enough, so next we will look at the potential for a new road tunnel under the Pennines between Sheffield and Manchester, possibly linked with a new rail tunnel. We are also looking at the problems on the M60 and whether an alternative to the M62 lies further north, in dualling the A66 or A69. Our fundamental objective is to fix problem roads and to get traffic moving once again so that motorists are able to drive at a minimum speed of a mile a minute on the core network.
I turn briefly to aviation and freight. The strategy also includes developing northern airports such as Manchester, Newcastle, Leeds-Bradford and Liverpool. Manchester, as I am sure many noble Lords know, will benefit from a £1 billion investment plan over the next 10 years. It is vital that we link the region to fast-growing markets around the world such as China, India and Brazil, because these links will attract investors to the north. Road and rail connectivity to airports and ports is of particular importance, so we are working with TfN to boost the links to these international gateways. HS2 and the new east-west line will provide significantly improved access. Individual city regions are working with local airports to improve connectivity right across the north.
We also have a shared vision with TfN for freight to support the northern powerhouse. It is a single plan for the future of logistics across the north—and this is the first time that any Government have produced such a plan. The objective is to build a single distribution network that operates efficiently and sustainably across modal boundaries and that exploits the full potential of private investment around ports in the north such as Liverpool, Humber and Tyne.
Today is—and the next few years will be—a tremendously exciting time for transport in the north: we are rolling out the road investment strategy; the HS2 Bill is making progress through Parliament and we are continuing development work on phase 2; we are pressing ahead with plans for the new high-speed, east-west railway; and TfN is uniting different authorities, city regions and the transport industry to deliver a single vision for transport in the north. Some may say that it is an ambitious plan that will take time to implement—but, as I am sure all noble Lords recognise, the prize at the end will be worth it. We look to establish and sustain a modern, reliable transport system to support and provide a boost for the region in terms of employment and related growth for generations to come, and to truly establish the north as an economic powerhouse that will not just be for the region alone but will have global reach.
And Lord Prescott's response
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Originally Posted by Lord Prescott
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate about transport connectivity in the north. The analysis that the Minister gave us is one that has, quite frankly, been around through two or three Governments—the argument is now about getting on with the job, which is what the Minister intends to do. This follows on from the debate last week when we talked about governance and about local organisations and combined authorities making the decisions. Today is about transport infrastructure. They are two sides of the same coin and are both absolutely essential if we are to achieve growth and prosperity in the north—I welcome that opportunity. I have to say to the Minister that when he said that this was an historic moment—similarly to the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, who spoke last week and was an architect of much of this good work in the present—I think that he was 10 years out of date.
From the analysis of the last Labour Government, I was able to produce a report called The Northern Way. It was a government report—it will be in the Minister’s department if he looks back through its history. He will see that the analysis was the same and that it produced a government policy, a transport policy and a local government connectivity policy, all in that period before our Government went out. But it was his Government and his department that scrapped it all—they scrapped the regional development agencies and they scrapped the reports that acted on the very analysis that the Minister has given in his statement today. It is essential that we act. Let me make it clear—I do not care whether you call it the northern way or the northern powerhouse, as long as we get on and do it. It is desperately needed in the north and has been wanted for a long time.
It is interesting that the northern powerhouse involves the same politicians I brought together to produce the northern way 10 years earlier, but that is part of the politics of the past. I am delighted that the Government and the Minister’s department have done a U-turn. It was his department that was against all these developments in the past and now it has done exactly the opposite. I wrote to the Chancellor saying, “You are a northern MP, don’t you think you should be doing something?” and then we got the northern powerhouse statement. I welcome it. It is a conversion for the Tories but I do not really mind as long as we get on with the job—transport from one area to another, the roads, rail and airports.
The Minister gave a little recognition to Hull—once. On seaports there was no mention whatever—I will come to that later—but, when it comes to airports, for the Government the north seems to stop at Leeds. They are stuck on top of the Pennines. They do not go anywhere to the rest of the country. If you are talking about the north, you had better start talking about East Yorkshire and North Yorkshire—they are the areas that need to be in it. The real problem with connecting local authority structures and combined authorities is that they are the ones that make the decisions and their planning authority does not go beyond Leeds. Okay, it stretches a little bit up to Newcastle but that is always on the tail-end of this analysis. But basically they are making the decisions so I am not surprised that there is no great mention of the A63 when, planned in the past, the motorway stops at the A63—10 miles short of Hull. When it comes to electrification, Hull is not mentioned except that the private company there that owns the trains, to its credit, is prepared to put some money in for the electrification but there is no money coming from the Government in those circumstances. We have to look beyond the Pennines in local government—and Hull has been denied the opportunity to be a combined authority, even though it produced a report in 2006 actually proposing that, but that is where we are at the moment.
The general conversion by the Government is welcome. They are putting their money where their mouth is. I would like to see how much money it is but let us get on with it and see what it is; it is on the way. I want to look at what the Minister referred to as the freight strategy. I think that is to be produced in 2016—next year. Therefore, I look forward to that. I hope it will take into account the trade that goes on between the big ports of the north. The big ports of the north are Hull in the east and Liverpool in the west. The traffic is of a global nature because most of the traffic coming in to Liverpool includes deepwater container ships. Where are the container ships coming from? When you look at the traffic flows, with the widening of the Panama Canal and the new trade agreements now being reached between the EU and America, which still have to be done, that will switch an awful lot of traffic from the Atlantic side over to the east as a way into Europe.
We are beginning to connect through those freight corridors major growth from the Atlantic side to the new international trade—the growth economies over in the east—so we are beginning to develop a route to Hull. It is not just the idea that you need to have a land-bridge across Europe, looking simply in the context of Europe. It is not just connecting Ireland and the UK on the periphery of continental Europe. It is a land-bridge, yes, helping that trade, but it is going to be more. It is going to become a global highway. The traffic coming in from the Liverpool port will cross over to the major consumer continent in the world; namely, Europe. There is going to be a major flow.
If we are to have, as in the past—as the Minister recognised—the kind of growth and prosperity in the north that came from the old traditional routes around the world and the traffic that crossed over, we must make sure that not only rail, roads and aviation are in the transport document; important places are mentioned but East Yorkshire has been left out, but I will leave that aside. We must give higher priority to the corridors between the two major ports. We will find ourselves in the centre of the global growth—not just on the periphery of Europe—coming in from the Atlantic side and the major developments and investment taking place on Merseyside, over to the east where there has been major investment in renewal with Siemens developing the Hull port. We have a little part of the connection between them but it is not put together. We have massive congestion in the middle of Hull because of Castle Street. In my time in government, I improved the Hedon Road concept. We took it there from the port, but as every politician knows, you might solve one problem but then the next one comes up: in this case it is Castle Street. I know the Government have agreed that they will try and get that done in time for Hull’s tenure as UK City of Culture—that takes a bit of time to sink in, but there you are, it is what we have decided. We have connected with Liverpool, which was the European Capital of Culture, so perhaps this connection could be a corridor of culture right across the north, from Liverpool to Hull. After all, today, we have just had recognition from someone whose name I have forgotten—what can you do in those circumstances?
I want to finish on the following point. I attended a conference in Liverpool called by the European Commission—the Minister will know the Minister involved in that conference. The Commission is talking about the “motorways of the sea” concept: an integrated chain of connection and integrated transport systems across Europe. It has held three conferences, including one in Copenhagen and one in Venice. It is following the transport flows and trying to create an integrated system. That is a very good argument on the trans-European connections. The Commission’s director-general, who was there, has invited Hull and Liverpool to get together to put forward their proposal. At the moment, there is a budget of about €1 billion to develop the route. We want to see this link between Liverpool and Hull—a crucial part of the corridor of trade—developed and would like to see whether that money could be used for it.
When does the Minister expect the integration conference to report? I hope he will make sure that it goes from one end of the north to the other and does not just stop part-way or get stuck in the Pennines. I look forward to what might be done and to the report coming out. Secondly, are we getting further news from the department about completing Castle Street and the A63? It is an essential part of any northern route, which should not just end short of the other port gateway. I would like to hear a response from the Minister to those two questions.
This is an exciting concept, and the north has been given a chance. It is a bit limited in some areas but it is going in the right direction and I hope the Minister can give us more information. I wish those who are making the decisions on investment well. There is public and private investment, with local government, national government and Europe involved. Out of that will come the amount of investment that is so necessary to develop this exciting prospect and which will offer the north a good opportunity, yet again, to develop, grow and provide the jobs built on trade that we had many years ago. We have another opportunity now, provided we get the infrastructure right.
And Lord Teverson's (Lib Dem) response
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Originally Posted by Lord Teverson
My Lords, I regularly travel up from the south-west of England to Newcastle. I get on a cross-country train quite regularly that literally wanders through the area of the north of England that we are talking about at the moment, through Sheffield, Wakefield, Westgate, Leeds, Doncaster, Darlington and Durham—if am lucky, in that order. One thing I am not subjected to is to have to make the trip on a Pacer train. I am sure that the commuters of the north will be very interested to hear from the Minister whether those Pacers have an unlimited lifespan under government plans for the north. We hope that they do not.
One of the other things about this debate—it was echoed by the noble Lord, Lord Prescott—is that there will probably be very little disagreement about the plan around the House. The report that this debate is based on was a coalition government report which was based on previous reports from previous Governments. The challenge is to move on. However, it is quite clear that there is a problem.
I looked at some figures from the LSE while preparing for this debate. We have looked at the so-called long boom of 1992 to 2007 and found that GVA growth in the south generally—which included the east Midlands but not the West Midlands—was 4.5% per annum. In London it was as high as 5.6%, but in the north it was down at 2.9%. Over that period, there has been a long divergence. Importantly, the metropolitan areas outside London provide only some 27% of English GVA, which is much less than equivalent cities elsewhere in Europe and European Union member states. There is an imbalance there. Quite strangely, and counterintuitively, although a large number of international companies locate themselves in London, if they do not locate there then they tend to locate in urban and even in rural areas rather than in England’s other metropolitan areas. Traditionally, the metropolitan areas outside London have been low job creators and had lower productivity, so there is a need to mend that gap. In the old days we used to call it regional policy. That is what I called it as an economics student, but for some reason we do not like the phrase these days. It smacks too much of planning and all sorts of things that I suspect this Government would not particularly like.
The theme that I want to expand on is based on the optimistic assumption that this investment programme will go ahead. With the highways reorganisation and the fact that we have control plans for railways, there is certainly a much greater probability that these investments will take place. I want to look at the type of investment and how we might implement it. In terms of developing countries, we often talk about leapfrogging technologies in energy, telephony systems and IT. One of the important aspects of this investment in transport in the north is that we should try to leapfrog ahead of the current technologies. Reading through the plans at the moment, I am not sure that that is being sufficiently considered.
In Manchester, we already have the example of what is probably one of the best tram systems and networks in Europe, let alone the UK. We have HS2 heading for the north, a topic that I will come back to. I was very pleased to see the inclusion of smart information systems that are needed for transport systems to be successful in any region. Reading the report, however, we see that there is a huge amount to do in resolving legal contracts and conflicts in those systems. All that needs to be sorted out and will take some time. Of course rail and interconnectivity are also talked about but, beyond that, there are some missing areas.
However good the rail system, cars and motor transport will continue to be important, particularly in a region that stretches over the distances we are talking about here. It seems that there is no discussion of clean-car technologies. In London, although provision is still poor, we have something like 850 charging points for electric vehicles, while the figure in Manchester is still in the 300s. The system in Paris, for example, has moved on from its equivalent of the “Boris bike” to an electric car-sharing service which was formed in 2011. It sounds pretty wacky and zany in many ways but it has in fact been remarkably successful, with 150,000 members, 4,000 charging points and something like 1,500 vehicles. Should we not look at testing, establishing and running a similar system in the northern powerhouse, rather than relying on old technologies? The company running the Paris system is starting to look at establishing itself in London, but let us move it abroad. The Government are investing something like £19 million in driverless vehicle research. This may be looking rather further ahead but I note that, of the four schemes planned for that research, none is in the north. Surely we should be encouraging that area of experimentation for future economic development.
I have not really seen anything mentioned about cycling. Clearly, very few people are going to cycle from Manchester to Leeds—it is challenging enough to cover the short distances involved where I live in Cornwall. However, the average proportion of travel done by cycle in English cities is 2%. We should be able to get that up to 10%. It is 25% in Holland, which is much flatter. As part of our road structure and planning in urban areas, surely we should take lessons from London and seek to physically separate cycle lanes from roads. Of course, there are pedestrians as well.
I was particularly pleased that the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, mentioned freight. I was in the freight industry for some 20 years, and it seems to me that that area is often left out. One area that was not mentioned was the Manchester Ship Canal, now owned by the Peel Group. Transport for the North has estimated that some 90% of containers are at the moment imported through southern ports, yet 60% of those are destined for the Midlands as well as the north. That is an incredibly stupid economic result and something that should not happen. The Manchester Ship Canal is very restricted in terms of the size of vessels, but is running at a capacity of 7% at the moment. I know that, as part of the Atlantic gateway project, ports are hoping to improve that, and I hope very much that the Manchester Ship Canal will be part of that freight solution, together with the developments that move along from there.
There are a number of areas where we should look forward to having a cleaner technology and a different solution in the north. I have one or two questions for the Minister. Clearly, inclusivity in the north is as important as it is in the south, and all the transport planning is around urban and metropolitan areas. I do not read anything about rural areas at all. Contrary to some of our images, the north has some of the most extensive area of rurality in England. What do we do about that? How do we capture the benefit of those transport investments to make sure that we can bring further money back in to make sure that that process happens more quickly?
A Daily Telegraph article called “Capturing the value” in January estimated that the Crossrail project would put up house prices in Whitechapel by some 54% and in Woolwich by some 52%, with Bond Street being at the bottom of the queue in five years’ time. How will we capture those benefits to be able to bring them back into public infrastructure?
Lastly, investment is one thing—and the noble Lord, Lord Prescott, was right again in wanting to get on with that—but there is also the ongoing cost. London is often seen as the model for certain parts of the north, certainly for Greater Manchester; we have £3 billion- worth of public subsidy for Transport for London and a £400,000 per annum subsidy for London Buses. For what is expected to be a fiscally neutral solution in terms of combined authorities, how are we going to meet that annual requirement on subsidy, or avoid it, to make sure that the infrastructure works properly?
It is clearly the right thing to do. However, in terms of balance, it is worth reminding ourselves that Crossrail is being built at the moment in London at a cost of £15 billion, and the whole of the overground rolling stock in stations is being refurbished. Crossrail 2 is likely to cost £27 billion and the Northern Line extension £1 billion—and, of course, HS2, which will only get to the north in something like 2032, will cost £43 billion, much of that into the south-east. So, yes, we must have a northern powerhouse and narrow that gap, but there are many challenges to making it happen.